Networking...updating...user overheating

The bottom line is that we are far from family and friends and it is important for us to try to keep in touch.
With that being said, I first started a family blog when we moved to Rome to accomplish above stated goal without having to retype the same e-mail over and over. This worked out relatively well and had become sort of a family journal for ourselves as well, as I haven't gotten it together enough to keep good (or any) record of what the kids are doing (Lili's baby album is still waiting to be assembled, in fact, our wedding album with pictures mostly from the predigital era consists of a box of photos being lugged around the world). So, as I said, the blog was doing well. Until Facebook made it (and thus the 'history of us') obsolete, that is. Not that it is the same thing, but I need to admit, posting what you are up to and a few photos on FB takes a few minutes. At most. The blog, although I have a good system of compressing and organizing photos, etc, etc, requires more time than that. So I am on FB because it is just too easy and I try to keep up the blog, because it is more meaningful and I do have several friends and family members who will never become FB users. But just looking back at the number of posts, the blog has clearly taken a hit. And I will go ahead and shamelessly use FB as the scapegoat.
Add to that the fact that I just got a complaint that my Mom does not have enough pictures of the kids. Now, she has probably at least 2500 pictures of the kids on her computer. I KNOW for a fact that there are about 1000 from the summer (Happy husband with DSLR camera!). But they don't count. Only printed photos count. So now I am assembling a photobook with iPhoto (thanks Cornell for giving me a home computer!). Which, admittedly, is a lot of fun. But still time consuming. And I am not even mentioning all the cameras (ok now I am), gadgets and editing tools that make average parents taking snapshots of their average (though cute :-)) kids think that they are a budding Annie Leibovitz and their kids are future celebrities. Or that we are yet undiscovered Cindy Shermans documenting our never aging selves. By the way, this refers only and only to how I feel sometimes, and not to anyone else's efforts at photography, blogging, etc ( which of course as all of us like looking at other people's pictures and reading up on their lives, I naturally love. And being so far away, I truly appreciate.)
But sometimes I just want a camera with a roll of film. I want to go back to the time when you think twice before you take a picture (and therefore have maybe 3 rolls of 24 exposures to organize after your vacation, naturally a third of them in the dark with crappy flash and a third with your eyes closed). And back to the time of correspondence by letters (which was not so long ago, I did it with my grandmother), when after you have written a letter and sent it via international post you have at least 3 weeks if not 2 months when the ball is out of your court. Since I check my e-mail at least twice a day, I know in this day and age this would drive me CRAZY but seriously I am going a little crazy as is...